Obamarama

Dear dedicated reader,

The Obama-fever has reached all the way to our village where everyone wants to stop me and congratulate me on the ascension of our new president. “Obama, yeah, he is good man,” Sagar, one particularly outspoken student in my Spoken English class, commented yesterday while making the Gujarati sign of approval, interrupting an activity that had nothing to do with the current president or his personal merits.

“Uh, thanks for that contribution, Sagar,” I said dryly while trying to get the class back on track. His strangely timed comment merely reflects the prevailing mood around here: Obama is featured daily on the front of both English and Gujarati newspapers and while I’m sure the level of coverage is nowhere near the frenzy that it must be at home, the hunger for knowledge about this man has led the students and our friends in Kadod to stop and grill us for information. One student even stole my biography of Michelle Obama off my desk when I wasn’t looking so he could take it home and show the pictures to his family.

As I walked into my 11th standard class on the day after the inauguration which Melissa and I watched from the comfort of the principal’s office (which in one corner conveniently houses a big screen TV under a crocheted dust-cover), I could hear the murmurs of the seemingly hallowed name under the breath of the students. The class clown, Bhavin, suddenly shouted, “Teacher! OBAMA!”

I smiled at him. “Yes,” I said after I reached the front of the class and the students had finished their ritual “Good morning teacher” and sat down, “it is the beginning of a new age in America, I guess.”

Earlier in the month, we had spent some class time diverging away from the fascinating topics the curriculum has to offer, such as excerpts from a 12th century poem and a nonsensical story about a boy with a stammer who enters a debate competition, in order to read an op-ed from The Indian Express comparing America and India’s human rights legacy and history of minorities in political offices. India came out very favorably in the comparison and so I thought it would be nice amidst all the hype for the students to read something to make them proud of their own country. Along the way, I had to explain the history of slavery in the US, the Jim Crow laws and the current racial dynamics of the US in English, none of which I’m sure was faithfully translated into student understanding, but the students did have some thoughtfully worded opinions to express about the subject after we finished the reading and so all in all it seemed like a worthy exercise.

Perhaps this was one of the reasons that the students seemed particularly excited to discuss the inauguration speech. “Did you watch?” I asked them, incredulously

“Yes, ma’am,” a good portion of the room replied. I was surprised. So many of these young men and women cared about the swearing in of this president on the other side of the world?

“And you understood it?” I continued, trying not to sound dubious.

“Not all, ma’am. Ma’am, please explain?” They looked at me pleadingly.

And so I found myself scrapping my lesson and being charged with the daunting task of making accessible to these students the eloquent words of our new president. The students, prone to chatting and side conversation, sat very silently with an intense kind of gaze as I tried to remember his speech and make it understandable to them point by point. I left out some things which had little do with Kadod, but overall, they seemed to catch the meaning.

The maturity with which the 11th standard students approached gaining knowledge could not be expected from my ninth standard boys, who, aside from stealing my books when I am not looking and passing them around excitedly to look at pictures of Sasha and Malia, have become obsessed with the similarity between “Obama” and “Osama”.

“Obama! Osama! Teacher!” They shouted at me as they hung around after school waiting for our Spoken English class to begin.

“Teacher,” one student with a relatively high level of Spoken English said, “Obama is a killed Osama.”

“Uh, what?” I said, puzzled.

“Obama Osama is killed,” he tried again. Try saying that five times fast.

Hitting him on the arm, his friend called him an idiot in Gujarati and tried again on his behalf. “Teacher, Osama say he kill to Obama.”

“Osama wants to kill Obama,” I repeated, becoming ever more confused. “Or Obama wants to kill Osama?”

“Ah, yes teacher,” they nodded, “like this.”

“Well,” I replied with a shrug, “I guess that makes sense.”

The obsession has escalated to the point where it is present even in our Spoken English dialogues. Our unit this week is focusing on formal/informal speech and polite ways of saying things versus impolite ways. I asked the boys to create a dialogue in which a famous person is invited to their house and they serve them tea and breakfast.

After much huddled whispering and a refusal to show me their Spoken English notebooks before performing, I and the rest of the Spoken English class were subjected to the following:

Student 1: (pretends to knock on door)
Student 2: Ah, come in, is it you, Osama?
Student 1: (enters, wearing two handkerchiefs tied around his face and head so only his eyes are visible) Oh yes, it is me, Obama.
Student 2: Please sit down. May I offer you some chai or chocolates?
Student 1: No, please. No chai.
Student 2: You are come to visit me. Is dangerous. You bring a pistol?
Student 1: No pistol I bring. This time.
Student 2: You wanted man.
Student 1: Yes, I am a wanted man. Okay, I go now.
Student 2: Okay, goodbye Osama.
Student 1: Goodbye, Obama!

Fin.

Let’s hope such a Dr. Seuss-esque meeting never occurs.

Best,
Cat